Show:
Planets
Vocabulary
Physics Explained
Wild Card
100

Name all the planets in order (starting from the Sun).

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune

100

Define the term celestial body.

Any object in space with mass.

100

What properties of an object affects its centripetal force?

Mass and velocity

100

What has a higher acceleration of gravity Earth or Mars?

Earth (shocking right?). Earth is more massive and has a larger radius. 

Earth: 9.8m/s2 

Mars: 3.7 m/s2

200
Pluto isn't a planet, but what is it?

A Dwarf planet

200

Define comets.

"dirty snowballs", masses of ice and rock

200

According to Einstein, what property or properties affect the force of gravity?

Mass 

200

How many Dwarf planets have been confirmed?

Five (Eris, Pluto, Makemake, Haume, and Ceres)

300
State, according to physics, the reasons why planets orbit the Sun.

Gravity and centripetal motion

300

Define asteroids.

Bits of rock and dust; "shooting stars"
300

Explain the difference between Einstein's and Newton's understanding of the force of gravity.

Einstein: gravity is due to a warp is space-time due to an object's mass.

Newton: gravity is an attraction between masses.

300

Why does a car horn as it approaches an observer sound high in frequency than when it drives away from the observer?

The sound waves are bunching together.

400
State the three qualifications for a celestial object to be called a planet.

1. Must orbit predominately orbit the Sun.

2. It must be massive enough to be spherical in shape.

3. It must be the must dominate (in terms of mass) its orbit.

400
Define acceleration of gravity.

The rate at which an object is speeding up due to the force of gravity.

400
Which planet, Mercury or Mars, has a faster year-long orbit, and why? 

Mercury, because it is closer to the Sun.

400

Define Newton's 1st law and explain what this has to do with centripetal motion.

An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external force (same for an object at rest); it relates to centripetal motion by explaining why an object feels an inward force acting on them as they move around a circle.

500

Name the four types of exoplanets AND estimate, to the thousandth place, how many have been found. 

Super-Earths, Terrestrial, Gas Giants, and Neptune-Like; 4,500 (will except anything in the range of 4,000 to 5,000).

500

Define the doppler effect.

The change in frequency of a wave as an object travels towards and away an observer.

500

Explain the difference between the methods of detecting exoplanets: Doppler Spectroscopy and the Transit Method.

Doppler Spectroscopy: astronomers analyze the light spectrums of stars to see the change in frequency (shifts blue and red/Doppler effect) as a star and planet orbit.

Transit Method: astronomers analyze the brightness changes of a star as a planet passes it.

500
What is the name of our galaxy?

The Milky Way